hello, i'm fredericka whitfield. a look at our top stories. investigators are on the scene in san francisco trying to figure out why a plane crashed less than 24 hours ago. they have a few big clues. the flight recorders. next. stunning moments after the crash. how they crawled out of the plane to safety thinking

everyone made it out only to learn later, otherwise. we start in san francisco. investigators there are trying to piece together what happened just before noon. the flight recorders have been recovered and the ntsb tweeted out this and investigators hope what is the critical clue just before the plane hit. here's what we know about the victims. two 16-year-old girls were killed in that crash. they're chinese nationals. asiana airlines identifies them as ye mengyuan and wang linjia. officials say their bodies were found on the runway. all the other people survived but some in critical condition. some flights destined for san francisco could be delayed up to nine hours. dan simon joins us live from the

airport. give this is latest. >> reporter: hi, fred. what we can tell you at this hour is investigators are aggressively searching for clues what happened here. as you said, those flight data recorders have been recovered and shipped to washington d.c. and data will be extracted and hopefully that will lead some clues. at this point, nothing has been ruled out including pilot error. the airlines ceo says apparently there was no problem with the engine or no mechanical problems with that airplane. we should also point out survivors and witnesses say it appeared the 7-year-old aircraft lost speed, maybe came in a bit too low and they report that the tail hit the runway and spun out of control. also, we should point out officials say that the airport technology called the instrument landing system or ils, which normally helps pilots correctly approach the runway was not operating at the time of the

crash. we don't know if in fact that played a role. we should also point out that system had not been operating since june and pilots were able to navigate the runway just fine. also, survivors tell us they heard no warning from either flight attendants or pilot shortly before the crash. that's all we know at this point. the next briefing is 4:30 eastern time where we expect the ntsb to update us. back to you. >> are investigators saying anything more about what took place, the sequence of events after the plane came to it's resting stop, the crash landing. we're hearing all kind of different accounts but wonder if that's something investigators want to piece together to get the full picture. >> reporter: what we know is obviously the exits, emergency exits were opened. you saw the slides, the dispatch

and people obviously got out of the airplane quickly. what's really interesting to note is 192 passengers self-evacuated. they were able to get on buses, come to the terminal. obviously, if they sustained any injuries, they would have been very minor. it's not worthy they got out just in time before that fuselage really caught fire. had they waited a couple minutes longer, you would be dealing with a much different situation, to put it mildly. >> indeed. keep us posted. survivors don't always walk away from crashes like this one. the stories we're hearing from witnesses are simply riveting. >> ben levy was on the plane and feels very lucky to be here today. >> we were about to land. the nose of the plane, as you know, goes up a little bit.

full throttle, start hitting hard and then we felt like we were going up again. that's why i say i felt like we were going to pull one of those almost mislanding and go back up. it didn't happen, we just crashed back. if we flipped, none of us would be here to talk about it. >> there was a lot of koreans that might not speak english that well. it was disbelief, screaming, a bit of chaos. we managed to get people out and get out and not pushing or stepping on each other. it felt like it went pretty fast. >> pretty remarkable. at san francisco general hospital emergency room doctors had to set up ternts to take care of the injured after that crash, while the most seriously hurt were rushed to the operating rooms. c cnn's reporter join us us. >> reporter: good afternoon.

we're expecting the first update from the hospital. you can see some of the podiums have been gathered here and we are expecting the pio to come and update us. as of last night, the information we had was 53 patients were brought to san francisco general. this is the only level one trauma unit in the entire city. some of the most seriously injured were brought here, six critical. we're expecting those numbers to move some what, the latest from the hospital we're getting shortly. in the meantime, we heard extraordinary tales from people aboard this plane. i sat down with a man this morning sitting in business class. he says he looked out to the right and saw the water and he knew. here's what eugene told us. i just knew we would have a crash and i would die. when it hit the runway so hard,

yeah, it was obvious. >> did you think anything about your wife? daughter? family, was there anything that -- >> of course, all my loved one flashed in my eyes. >> reporter: he says it's an extraordinary moment when you think, in that split second, that your life is over, what you think about. he says he could not sleep all night. that when he takes a moment to pause and to breathe, all he can think about is that exact moment. i actually interviewed him outside. you could hear some of the planes from san francisco flying overhead and every single time a plane went over you could actually see him flinch. certainly 24 hours later he's having an comparatively difficult time trying to process this. >> i know. he calls it like a slide show, keeps processing over and over what he was feeling at the time of that crash.

there's going to be that press conference you mentioned momentarily. have you learned anything about the injuries doctors are treating just ahead of that press presser? >> reporter: what the doctors have been saying here, we heard from the head of the er, there's a number of injuries they're seeing, primarily bumps and bruises. 53. there was a huge triage last night. a lot of those patients were what they described as walking wounded. the ones more seriously injured, they're worried about smoke inhalation. remember, this was a fire aboard the plane even though most passengers were able to get out and a lot of smoke especially towards the rear. they're worried about the fractures but the spinal injuries is what the doctors are focusing on. because they landed so hard a lot of passengers' heads hit the top of the plane and we're waiting for information on how they're doing. >> thanks so much. we'll return to the hospital and you when that press conference

gets under way. next hour, we're going to be talking live to mr. eugene rah and his daughter live here in the "newsroom" next hour. let's look at other stories making news this hour. it could be another long intense night in egypt where people are gathering in cairo and supporters of the deposed president demanding his reinstatement and opponents of the muslim brotherhood are planning to protest. george zimmerman set to testify tomorrow in sanford, florida and the defense team will pick off where it left on friday. we'll go to sanford, florida and see what dramatic moments we might expect in the coming week. at least five people are dead and police say many more deaths are expected after an unmanned train exploded leveling part of the canadian town near the u.s. border. and about 10 people still

missing. the train came loose after an engineer tied it down after checking into a motel for the night. weather conditions were pretty good when that'sia iaairborn ass jet crashed yesterday. and a look at conditions as they try to piece things together. >> that's right. as they pull all the information together they need conducive conditions and looks like the next several days we will see that. at the time of the crash, visibility was 10 miles and greater, virtually clear skies. we're looking at temperatures, mostly in the low 70s. we'll start to see increasing christoph cloud cover and maybe better chances of rain later on in the week but in this short term, fairly nice conditions. and boston and new york and philadelphia, the heat is still on across the southwest but it

is oppressorbly hot along the i-95 corridor into the northeast. in the southeast, rainfall does not want to let up. >> i'm sorry, i need to interrupt you. we need to go to the san francisco general hospital press conference under way, the first one since that crash. let's listen in. >> reporter: i know some of you are interested in learning more about that. a whole gang of people. another fabulous san francisco general hospital staff, the trauma coordinator and sheriff is also here. let me get right to it. the update as of 11:00 a.m. tod today -- yes.

it's okay, i'll wait. >> thank goodness. >> we're all at work, right? okay. tell me when you're ready, sir. yes? okay. so as of today, san francisco general hospital has treated 53 patients from the airline accident. that is the most number of patients that any hospital has treated. we had 27 adults and 26 child n children. we currently have 19 patients admitted and 34 have been discharged. of the 19 who are admitted, that includes six critically injured patients including one child. the remaining patients, the other 13, range in condition from serious to fair to good.

we talked a little bit yesterday about the types of injuries they sustained. i'll let the doctor reinforce that in a moment. the ages of the adults range from 20 to 76. we have multi-lingual patients, korean speakers, chinese speakers, english speakers, we have staff and interprets who speak all those languages and been able to provide care to those patients in their own language. i think that's the update. was there anything -- other loose ends from justify? >> the child, how old is this child? male or female? >> it's a female minor. i'm not going to release the age. >> can you tell me a breakdown of the -- >> no, i don't have that information. >> of the six critical, do any have life-threatening injuries. >> that's what critical is. so they've been in surgery,

they've been in intensive care. i'll let the doctor speak to that. i wanted to make sure this update is clear to everyone before we move onto the other clinical issues. okay? great. so doctor -- smell your name. >> dr. margaret get knudson, k-n-u-d-s-o-n. dr. margaret knudson from san francisco hospital. i was on call yesterday. call starts at 7:00 in the morning for us. we got a call at noon there was a multi-casualty event that occurred. my job that day was to go down to the trauma rooms and try to sort out the most critically injured patients. by the time i got down to the emergency department, we already were receiving critically injured patients. we had four rooms going at the same time of the most critical.

i have to say whoever triaged these patients at the airport did a fabulous job because they got to us the sickest patients in the shortest period of time or i don't think those patients would have survived, truly. my job was to make sure that the patients were addressed by teams. i had four trauma teams ready to go. i had five operating rooms ready and staff and set to take care of these patients. we had three of them go directly to surgery. one team that i led, a couple other surgeons led the other teams and we cleaned out the emergency rooms for most critically injured patients in a very short period of time. i can address some of the injuries that we've seen, which are a different pattern. we are used to seeing multiple injured patients and multiple kinds of injuries at this hospital, but we have seen a different pattern in these types of injuries. of course, we're not super experienced with airline

crashes, fortunately, but what we did see are patterns of large amounts of abdominal injuries, a huge amount of spine fracture, some of them which include paralysis and head trauma and multiple type of orthopedic injuries. that's the type we are seeing and saw some parentients that h severe road rash suggesting they were dragged. not sure if those patients were outside of the plane and this is what happened to them but both of those patients are alive. once we were done with the initial trauma resuscitation and first set of surgery, we had all people who assembled to help us out and this included huge numbers of people that we didn't call but came in to help us. we had all those people in the same room. by this time, we had lists of 32 people that had been seen and looked at. this huge team of people which included orthopedic surgeons and

neural surgeons and anesthesiologist and radiology gist, we sat together and made sure we had identify by type of given name, who those patients were and what their injuries were so we didn't miss anybody. after that, we had another set of traumas to run through. we did run a little bit short of blood at one time. thanks to the blood bank in san francisco, we were able to catch up and get what we needed. some of our patients have been operated on twice already and there's going to be many many more surgeries to come still. guess at this point i can answer questions. >> six critical, can you describe the injuries? >> so the most critical injuries are two -- are head trauma and severe intraabdominal injuries with bleeding. then there's several people, as i mentioned, with very bad spine fractures, some of which include

paralysis. >> how many patients were experiencing burns? >> we have some very minor burns but we did not see major burns. we were expecting burns and we didn't see them. >> you mentioned two had road rash, they were dragged? >> it appears they were dragged over something. >> do you know where in the plane the most critically injured were sitting? >> yes. everybody that was able to give us information were sitting in the back of the plane. obviously we have patients we can't talk to. >> these were the most severe. >> the patients awake enough to talk to us said they were sitting in the back of the plane. >> how many are unconscious? >> of the patients in the hospital, 15, 16. >> the ones most severely injured in the back of the plane, could you describe what happened squlrngts. >> pretty remarkable account from doctors at san francisco general hospital talking about the fact there are 19 still admitted at the hospital right

now. less than half of them are in critical condition and the types of injuries of greatest severity include abdominal injuries and spine injuries. this dr. here, dr. knudson describing some fractures leading leading leading to paralysis and the most severe involving head trauma. victims from the ages of 20 to 76 that remain hospital lied and then there is a minor, one child that also remains hospitalized at san francisco general hospital. big kudos coming from the doctor saying whoever carried out the triage of a number of the patients that were -- before they actually arrived at the hospital actually did a great job, so she did commend those who treated and those who helped many of these patients before they even left to the airport area arriving at san francisco

general. when we get any more information or status changes of any of the patients they continue to treat at san francisco general, we'll bring that to you. much more straight ahead from the "newsroom" after this. it's a brand new start. your chance to rise and shine. with centurylink as your trusted technology partner, you can do just that. with our visionary cloud infrastructure, global broadband network and custom communications solutions,

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beijing, people saw pictures of the crash and prayed their loved ones were okay. c cnn's reporter reports from the reaction overseas. >> reporter: relatives from flight 214 from asia looking for their relatives. airline officials all en route and all landed already from san francisco to seoul and try to find those answers. this plane originated in shanghai. that's why there were so many chinese nationals on board including a team of 25 middle school students en route to a summer camp. very sad details. the two -- the names released of the two chinese teenage girls who lost their lives in the crash according to the san francisco fire brigade, their bodies found outside on the runway. asiana airlines' boss gave and abject apology for the accident.

>> translator: i am very sorry to posterior families of passeng passengers as well as people. i bow my head in apology. >> but mr. yoon said he didn't think engine fill your was to blame. it was brought in 2006 and the flight pilot had 10,000 flight hours under his belt and described as an asiana veteran f flying for the airline since 2006. the inspectors will team up with the ntsb, the u.s. national transportation safety board to try and work out what went wrong. officials in seoul have warned it may take some time for this investigation. at the very least, six months and possibly two years. meanwhile, dozens of passengers in critical condition in the hospitals around san francisco. cnn, seoul. edward snowden gets some new

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the man behind the nsa leaks, edward snowden, has a big choice to make. where will he seek asylum? since friday, he received offers from venezuela, bolivia and nicaruaga and venezuela said they actually haven't heard from snowden. matthew, has any heard from snowden? >> reporter: no. as far as we know, fredericka, he's still holed up in the transit terminal of moscow's airport. you're right. officials said they haven't made

contact with him and haven't spoken with him since this offer of asylum was made. there are expectations they will do that in that terminal building. the offer is genuinely there. the president of venezuela, nicolas ma dodoura is offering humanitarian asylum so he can live away from imperial persecutions. snowden also offered potential asylum in bolivia and nicaruaga as well. the big question, how on earth is this nsa leaker going to get from moscow to any of those countries? he doesn't have a travel document. even if he gets one, it will be difficult for him to avoid an aircraft that not just has an extradition treaty with the united states but flying through countries sympathetic to the

u.s. >> what about cuba? might that be a route? >> reporter: it would be, if the airspace issue weren't a problem, certainly, even though cuba does have an extradition treaty with the united states, there is a suggestion it may allow a plane from moscow to arrive in havana and allow snowden to transitton caracas or some other south american capital that may want to give him asylum. the problem is the bolivia president encountered this, even the suggestion snowden was on his plane made some european countries force his presidential aircraft to land and the same may happen with a commercial airliner. >> all right. very complicated, matthew chance, keep us posted on that. thanks so much. next in the "newsroom," ight recorders are already in washington and no potential cau cause. what caused that crash landing

of asiana flight 214?

we're following every update out of san francisco, following that plane crash and expecting to hear more from the ntsb in about two hours from now. two 16-year-old girls died on that flight. asiana airlines said they were both chinese and we just got more details about the injured from san francisco general hospital. they say they have six people

who remain in critical condition, including one child. they have been seeing injuries ranging from head trauma to paralysis. the george zimmerman murder trial is set to resume tomorrow in sanford, florida. the defense will continue after calling zimmerman's mother to the stand on friday. we'll go to sanford, florida, in just a few minutes for a live look ahead. it's been a 77-year-old drought but a british player has once again won the wimbledon title. andy murray beat former champion novak djokovic in straight sets. murray made it to the final last year before losing to roger federer. murray took to the twitter right away after winning. can't believe what just happened! while ecstatic actor, russell crowe, andy murray, you champion, well done son.

the former tycoon is getting a divorce. he's seeking the breakup. it comes after photos were published of him with his hands around nigella's throat last month. when we come back, i'll ask about an aviation engineer what they're looking for after that crash. we know it's your videoconference of the day. hi! hi, buddy! that's why the free wifi and hot breakfast are something to smile about. book a great getaway now and feel the hamptonality

the national transportation safety board is going over the flight data and voice recorders that were on board asiana flight 214. we got insight earlier from man who knows a lot about boeing jets, a former boeing aviation

safety engineer and spoke with cnn's john king. >> let's start with the plane. the boeing 777. you look at the pictures and see it hit close to the edge of the water on the runway, what does that tell you? >> it tells me, if nothing else, the approach was more shallow than it should have been. they landed or the touchdown point was far short of where they landed. it should never have come close to hitting the seawall at the edge of the runway like that. >> at that point, how fast is a plane typically traveling and number two, we all get used to technology on airplanes, is the computer flying the plane or the pilot? >> typically the pilot is hand flying the plane right at the approach there. this was a day, a relatively good weather day. they didn't have to have a full auto on system. even when you have auto-on systems right before touchdown you will have the pilots under positive control of the aircraft. as far as why it hit the way it

did or rather how fast it was, it depends on the weight of the aircraft and other factors. again, this is something that has to be discovered through the cockpit voice recorder and the digital flight data recorder. how exactly -- how fast this aircraft was going both horizontal horizontally along the go around and it's vertical speed, that may be the critical factor that made it land so short. >> you look at those pictures. it lost it's tail with the fuselage pretty much in contata except for the damage caused by the fire. what does that tell you about the initial impact? >> the impact was strong enough to basically cause both horizontal stabilizers and vertical fin to come off the aircraft. this was major structural damage and made it difficult to control the aircraft. if you look towards the end of the fuselage, you see what seems to be a tear in a bunch of metal. that seems to be the aft pressure bulkhead so you probably had very serious

structural damage within that part of thefu fuselage as well. >> once the fin goes and stabilizer goes, does the pilot have any control over that airplane? >> they certainly have some control but dynamics far different than you would see in a normal landing. i want to emphasize one thing we're not quite sure of because investigators haven't got there therethere, what was the vertical speed of this on touchdown. landing gear and engines separated at impact. it could have been the vertical speed was so great and energy hit the go around so great you have major portions of the aircraft like landing gear coming off soon after touchdown. >> if you were one of those investigators and making your list now of questions you want answered, what are the top two or three? >> the top two or three is what is this statement from the pilots flaying the aircraft. we have all sorts of information from the black boxes, but the

state of mind of the pilot, that is, why they made the decisions they did prior to landing is something very important to know. from outward appearances to the very end of the flight, it looked as though the flight were normal. one question i would like to ask those pilots, was there anything going on in this minutes or hours leading up to the landing where you were taken off your usual schedule? were you doing things not on the checklist? were you not following procedures? anything out of the list or ordinary prior to landing? >> we're also getting very dramatic first person accounts on board flight 214. you material another story from another survivor after this. ñe

we've been hearing harrowing accounts from passengers on board asiana flight 214. it had been in the air more than 10 hours from seoul, south korea, when it crash landed at san francisco international airport. our wolf blitzer spoke with passenger elliott stone. >> perfect the whole time, like 10 seconds from being home. seemed like we were a little bit high, like we could see the tarmac down below us and so are coming down kind of sharp, and then, right when it started to coast for the landing, all of a

sudden, the engine was off, like you spet up, like the pilot knew he was short and, boom, the back end just hit and flies up in the air and everybody's head goes up to the ceiling and then it kind of drifts for a little bit 300 yards and tips over, fire starts, everybody's pushing the doors out. then, once we're on the go around, everybody was all huddled on one side. my family and i went to this other side and like 20 minutes later, this lady just appears from like 500 yards away, just like crippled, just walking. we started running over and like another five bodies were like 500 yards away that nobody saw. so we're running over there, calling an ambulance and stuff but ambulances took 20, 30 minutes to get there. pretty ridiculous. we're yelling at people, yelling at firefighters, get over here! get over here! they're lagging hard. at the airport for hours, nothing. not really impressed with the

whole protocol and system in place for this type of thing. >> elliott, where were you sitting on the plane? >> we were really fortunate. central. a family of four, my girlfriend, her sister and two other, my martial arts students. we're all pretty central to the back end, got knocked off right on that landing, so it's flight attendants on the tarmac or way in the back. they were sitting in the back end got hammered because we landed short and they all fell out. it was just the most terrible thing i've seen, you know, and yelling for people and no one was coming for days, bad. >> just to get it straight, you were sitting in coach near the back of the plane, is that what you were saying? >> we were sitting in the middle. we were super happy, all together in the middle. once it happened, we consoled each other and doors opened and there was pushing and rushing

out. the middle was pretty safe. >> so what happened? all of a sudden the plane stops, part of it -- part of it is no longer there, i take it. >> yeah. >> what did they tell you to do? get out of your seat? you were fastened in your seat and tried to get out down the chutes, is that what you tried to do? sn>> just everyone was doin doing -- the first announcement was everyone stay calm. we're like, what? everyone was leaving, so buckle up or buckle down and just rushed out the doors. there wasn't any slide or anything, we didn't have a slide. we just jumped off. >> the slides weren't -- you just jumped out of the emergency, the doors opened up and you jumped out as quickly as you can? >> yeah. >> did you see a lot of people injured? >> yeah. there were probably like 50 to 75 people kind of like on structures and had neck braces and stuff. there was five we saw just terrible, like, you know, bad

news. those are the flight attendants that got dropped out the back. the back got the worst of it and that's what opened up where the flight attendants sit and got out and we fishtailed 300 yards and slide and rolled over, fire started. that's when everyone, all the passengers jumped out. there's nobody where the flight attendants jumped out at the very beginning, nobody over the longest time.cy, nothing for >> wow, extraordinary first person account. more from other eyewitness, those passengers on board later on. we turn to arizona, the firefighters who died in last sunday's blaze are headed home in a somber procession. we'll take you there live. at university of phoenix we kis where it can take you.cation

(now arriving: city hospital) which is why we're proud to help connect our students with leading employers across the nation. (next stop: financial center) let's get to work. >> announcer: introducing the redesigned jitterbug plus, our smartest, easiest cell phone yet. >> when i heard about the jitterbug, i went online and ordered one for my mom. she loves it. she takes it everywhere. thanks to greatcall, now my mom has a cell phone she actually enjoys using. >> hi, grandma! >> hi, sweetie! >> announcer: the jitterbug plus-- the large numbers and the yes/no buttons make it easy to use, the bright screen is easy to see, while the improved speaker makes conversations loud and clear, and with the longest-lasting battery on the market, you won't have to worry

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team fighting arizona wildfires. nick joining me now. you can see a lot of people joining them. >> reporter: hundreds have turned out. they're expecting other hotshot firefight others to show up 100 mile stretch from phoenix to prescott. going from the coroner's office in phoenix to the coroner's office in their hometown. a very sad day. some of these people were in the prime of their lives, fred. one firefighter leaves behind a pregnant fiance, expecting their first child this fall. certainly remembering their legacy. this will not be the only dedication this week, tuesday, this memorial service for the 19 firefighters. vice president joe biden expected to show up. all eyes on prescott, arizona and phoenix, this very somber processio procession. >> we're talking about an elite

group of firefighters calling theirselves "hot shots" on the front line and leads. >> it was 95% contained fire when the wind shifted on them. they didn't anticipate the wind to shift and wall of fire for d formed. it took out 19 firefighters, the deadliest day for firefighters since september 11th. >> thanks so much. so many people coming out to pay homage to those firefighters. nick, thanks so much. george zimmerman back in court first thing tomorrow. the defense team gets a chance to present it's side of the story. a live preview from sanford, next.

good morning. the trial of george zimmerman is set to resume 9:00 tomorrow eastern time. it is scheduled to set at 9:00. george zimmerman's mom said it was her son screaming on the tape when zimmerman shot martin. that after sybrina fulton, martin's mother testified, it was her son's voice she heard. our martin savidge is in sanford, florida. the defense is rolling out it's side of the case. who's up next? >> hello, fredericka. right now, i think we would anticipate you will have a little bit of witness deja vu. some of the witnesses you saw take the stand on the side of the prosecution are now going to be called back on the side of the defense. that may sound strange but i

think if you recall some of that early testimony, there were a number of people who came out and spoke and sounded almost as if they were providing a defense or aiding the defense of george zimmerman in this particular case. i think you're probably also going to hear from those who treated george zimmerman, talking about the paramedics and others, because that's something the defense will want to reiterate to that jury is the injuries that george zimmerman says he sustained as a result of being punched in the face first by trayvon martin and then beaten while laying on the go around, that is the whole premise of self-defense. the real question many people want to know, will george zimmerman take the stand? mark o'mara the leading defense attorney pointed out the fact and pointed out george zimmerman has already made a number of taped statements and those have been public. listen. >> if he did not have all of his statements out, if he truly had to get in front of that jury to speak the first word, then i'd probably say he's definitely going to testify. now, since he has so much information out there from all

his statements we'll make our decision in a more dynamic fashion once we see how the rest of the case goes. >> most of the observers i have spoken to said there is not a chance in the world george zimmerman would take the stand, mainly, that is based upon the premise they have seen this case progressing very much in the defense's favor and that if zimmerman were to take the stand, he could be risking it by possibly misstate original saying something. it is not anticipated he will take the stand. you heard mark o'mara say, we'll wait and see. >> fascinating week in the making. thanks so much, martin savidge in sanford. >> stay with us. at the top of the hour, all the latest details about the san francisco crash under way. plus, amazing stories of survival from passengers who got out alive.

hello again, everyone. i'm fredericka whitfield. these stories are topping the "newsroom." investigators in san francisco trying to figure out why a plane crash landed 24 hours ago. we have a couple big clues, the flight recorders from the wreckage. we're live from san francisco next. the george zimmerman murder trial is set to